She turned, and looked up at him from under the brim of her hat, and the man's heart turned almost sick with the depth of sudden adoration that shook him; so young, so friendly and simple and trusting was the ready smile, so infinitely endearing the touch of the warm fingers she slipped into his! He sat down beside her, and they dug their heels into the sand, and talked in low tones. The sun shone down on them kindly, and the waves curved and broke, and came rushing and slithering to their feet, and slid churning and foaming noisily under the pier near by. Norma buried her husband's big hand in sand, and sifted sand through her slender fingers; sometimes she looked with her far-away look far out across the gently rocking ocean, and sometimes she brought her blue eyes gravely to his. And the new seriousness in them, the grave and noble sweetness that he read there, made Wolf suddenly feel himself no longer a boy, no longer free, but bound for ever to this exquisite and bewildering child who was a woman, or woman who was a child, sacredly bound to give her the best that there was in him of love and service and protection.
She showed him a new Norma, here on the sunshiny sands, one that he was to know better as the days went by. She had always deferred to his wisdom and his understanding, but she seemed to him mysteriously wise this morning—no longer the old little sister Norma, but a new, sage, keen-eyed woman, toward whom his whole being was flooded with humility and awe and utter, speechless adoration.
At nine o'clock, when nurses and children began to come down to the shore, they got to their feet, and wandered in to breakfast. And here, to his delight, she was suddenly the old mad-cap Norma again, healthily eager for ham and eggs and hot coffee, interested in everything, and bewitchingly pretty in whatever position she took.
"I wish we had the old 'bus, Nono," Wolf said. He usually spoke of his motor-car by this name. "They've been overhauling her in that Newark place. She was to be ready—by George, she was ready yesterday!"
"We'll go over—I'll come over and meet you next Saturday," his young wife promised, busy with rolls and marmalade, "and you'll take me to lunch, and then we'll get the car, and go and take Rose and the baby for a ride!"
"Norma," the man exclaimed, suddenly struck with a sense of utter felicity, and leaning across the table to stop, for the minute, her moving fingers with the pressure of his own, "you haven't any idea how much I love you—I didn't know myself what it was going to mean! To have you come over to the factory, and to have somebody say that Mrs. Sheridan is there, and to go to lunch—Dearest, do you realize how wonderful and how—well, how wonderful it's going to be? Norma, I can't believe it. I can't believe that this is what love means to everybody. I can't believe that every man who marries his—his——"
"Girl," she supplied, laughing.
"Girl—but I didn't mean girl. I meant his ideal—the loveliest person he ever knew," Wolf said, with a new quickness of tongue that she knew was born of happiness. "I can't believe that just going to Childs' restaurants, or taking the car out on Sunday, or any other fool thing we do, means to any man what it's going to mean to me! I just—well, I told you that. I just can't believe it!"
Two days later they came home for Sunday supper, and there was much simple joy and laughter in the little city apartment. Aunt Kate of course had fried chicken and coffee ice-cream for her four big children. Harry Junior, awakening, was brought dewy and blinking to the table, where his Aunt Norma kissed the tears from his warm, round little cheeks, and gave him crumbs of sponge cake. Rose and Harry left at ten o'clock for their country home, leaving the precious baby for his grandmother and aunt to bring back the next day, but the other three sat talking and planning until almost midnight, and Kate could feast her eyes to her heart's content upon the picture of Wolf in his father's old leather chair, with Norma perched on the wide arm, one of her own arms about her husband's neck and their fingers locked together.
It was settled that they were to find a little house in East Orange, near Rose, and furnish it from top to bottom, and go to housekeeping immediately. Meanwhile, Norma must see the Melroses, and get her wedding announcements engraved, and order some new calling cards, and do a thousand things. She and Wolf must spend their evenings writing notes—and presents would be arriving——!